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Latest Breaking Pakistan News, Business, Life, Style, Cricket, Videos, CommentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 22:35:32 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1Why did Pakistan forget Malala?http://tribune.com.pk/story/615223/why-did-pakistan-forget-malala/
http://tribune.com.pk/story/615223/why-did-pakistan-forget-malala/#commentsTue, 08 Oct 2013 17:27:11 +0000Taha Siddiquihttp://tribune.com.pk/?p=615223It was exactly a year ago today when Malala was shot by the Taliban. Pakistan and the world were shocked that day to see that the Taliban could shoot a 14-year-old girl. This was unacceptable to everyone. The country came out on the roads, protesting and demanding action against the Taliban. We started hearing of a major operation being planned to go after the dreaded Taliban. Finally, the country was waking up. As Malala struggled between life and death in those early days, we were seeing a united Pakistan — one that wanted to punish those responsible.

Fast forward to the present day, nothing has happened on that front. How did we get here? Well, it all started with a narrative that told of this being an incursion from Afghanistan. It wasn’t our good old Taliban ‘brothers’, you see. These were enemies from the other side of the border. And don’t we love conspiracies about the ‘foreign hand’? Suddenly, the news machinery started churning out articles and talks-shows, which pointed fingers towards the Afghan government for giving refuge to the Taliban. Nato and the US were questioned as to why they weren’t taking action against these horrible terrorists operating from the region on the other side of the Durand Line. And very strategically, the debate to take action against the Taliban started to fade away.

But there were still a few out there who were pointing to the fact that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) took responsibility for the attack. Not only that, these voices kept reminding everyone that the TTP went to the extent of saying that they would target her again, if she survived. These few sane voices had to be silenced too. So, another front was opened by the deep state — Malala had to be declared a foreign agent working for the CIA. Different religious lobbies came out on talk shows, questioning Malala, her family and the West for aiding her. And it started to work. Slowly, everyone started to question the way she was ‘used’. Nobody seemed to care about how she was doing. Her health became secondary as the nation started to ‘investigate’ her ties with the West. And even when her photographs were released to the media, in which we could see her in a hospital bed, with frightened eyes, holding a stuffed toy, religious leaders were calling it all a drama.

And how could the anti-drone campaigners stay behind. This lot started to share fake photos of drone victims on the internet. Questions were asked as to why ‘thousands’ of Malalas were being killed by drone attacks and all that the West cared about was a 14-year-old girl, who allegedly did not even write her diary and maybe was not even shot, and was photographed multiple times ‘hanging out with the CIA’.

Today, while Malala is a global icon, in Pakistan, her struggle is seen as a conspiracy, which needs to be investigated as we prepare for talks with the Taliban, who shot her and who continue to bomb schools, kill minorities and spread their terror. Malala is among the favourites to be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded this week, and from the look of things, the world will once again celebrate and learn from those who are worthy of receiving the Nobel Prize, like Dr Abdus Salam, while Pakistan continues to shun them and live in a different world, where the only narrative that prevails is of those who are protecting the twisted ideology of the Taliban.

]]>41The PTI’s south Punjab tourhttp://tribune.com.pk/story/480836/the-ptis-south-punjab-tour/
http://tribune.com.pk/story/480836/the-ptis-south-punjab-tour/#commentsMon, 17 Dec 2012 17:36:20 +0000Taha Siddiquihttp://tribune.com.pk/?p=480836Imran Khan keeps talking about change. Change of leadership. Change of system. Change of status quo. But after travelling with and meeting Khan in the past few weeks, I have come to a conclusion that he needs to take drastic measures to stop becoming more and more irrelevant.

Just last year, around the same time, he was being called the third political force after stalwarts of other political parties, soon after the famous rally in Lahore in October, started joining the Imran Khan bandwagon. However, these very elements have failed him in the response he received in south Punjab during his recent tour of that area.

Dubbed as an ‘Awami raabta muhim’ in constituencies that are considered a stronghold of Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jahangir Tareen — his current three closest advisers — Khan’s south Punjab visit was important since it was seen as a gauge of the popularity of his party in the areas of the party’s heavyweights. But the fact also remains that these heavyweights represent the status quo and this is proving to be harmful to him and the party.

The status quo was visible from the day Khan arrived in the region.

With the start of this south Punjab visit in a private jet that a handful of people in Pakistan privately own to touring the district in four-wheelers that only a fraction of Pakistanis can afford, the PTI chief was surrounded by people who are very much part of the status and do not really represent his slogan of change in any way. Furthermore, this is not only proving to be a burden, it is also making the party believe in an electoral future that may actually not be so rosy.

In Lodhran, where Tareen is among the richest landlords, the PTI chief addressed more than nine gatherings in a span of 12 hours or so. In one of the villages where Imran Khan was going to arrive later, I reached earlier to get a sense of his welcome. There, I found quite a few ‘outsiders’ making sure that all was ready when Khan’s convoy, led by Tareen’s expensive four-wheeler, reached the location.

While the gatherings were well-orchestrated, it seemed that many of the participants were there simply because they had been transported there.

A group of local journalists was given a navigation guide by Tareen. Upon inquiry, he turned out to be a servant at his farmhouse. The servant’s constant recognition for people in vehicles around us was remarkable and when I asked him how he knew all of them, he replied: “These are all Tareen saab’s workers”.

When Imran Khan arrived at the spot, he spoke briefly for ten minutes to a couple of thousand people. At other spots, there was even a smaller crowd. The organisers were smart enough to hold the gatherings in narrow commercial streets where the crowd was bound to look bigger. The level of participation can also be judged by the fact that the people I spoke to in the same village where a jalsa was held, not too far from their homes, were not even aware of it being held.

Imran Khan clearly thinks he is a rock star. The more I meet, cover and hear him, the more I feel that this self-perception may be affecting his judgment as well. Throughout the south Punjab visit, I saw him sitting on stage, wearing shiny sunglasses and instead of looking up and interacting with the crowd, he was busy playing with his smart phone. If he wants to reach out to people in rural areas, he has to give up comforts such as the stage, imported four-wheelers and so on.

He also needs to move beyond cursing President Asif Ali Zardari, the Sharif Brothers and just about every other politician who has not joined his party. Yes, everyone loves to bash those in power and have a good laugh but the PTI chief needs to understand that his role is bigger than a stand-up comedian because rural Pakistan can make or break him.

There is confusion on a reported ban on Pakistani newspapers’ entry into Afghanistan. Embassies in Kabul have not been getting newspapers since September 20, which is a cause for concern, said Pakistan Ambassador Muhammad Sadiq while talking to a delegation of Pakistani journalists on a 10-day visit to Afghanistan on Sunday.

But the Afghan authorities insist the ban is just on 15 Urdu dailies and not English papers.

The ambassador said he was not informed why the mainstream English media from Pakistan, including The Express Tribune, were being stopped by the border post.

“[The mainstream] English newspapers have no hate literature. This is a bit too much and really sad,” said Sadiq.

“We raised our concerns with the ministry of information and the foreign ministry in Afghanistan, but they said they were not aware of the ban on mainstream Pakistani English newspapers.”

He said some foreign magazines were also banned. The ban, he said, was not affecting the common reader. However, the foreign embassies in Afghanistan were not receiving any Pakistani newspapers, he added.

Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry spokesperson Sediq Sediqi has denied any ban on the mainstream Pakistani newspapers. “Only 15 Urdu newspapers that have low circulation in Pakistan have been banned for spreading hatred for the Afghan government and supporting the Taliban stance,” he said.

Adding on the issue, a senior official at the embassy said that the Afghan government often acted impulsively because it is a young democracy, and decisions such as the recent ban on the Pakistani newspapers reflected that.

Earlier, the ambassador also discussed bilateral trade relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The ambassador said that the Pakistan-funded development projects in the country have helped create a better image of the country in Afghanistan. He said that Pakistan’s annual trade with Afghanistan is around five billion dollars.

“There are more than 140 trade routes between Pakistan and Afghanistan,” he said. However, he added that the illegal cross-border movements, which he said, are detrimental to the trade and law and order in both countries.

“Most Afghans move in and out without visa and it’s a failure of border control on both sides. It needs to be controlled,” he said.

Elaborating on the future of Afghanistan, the ambassador criticised Pakistan’s past policies of interfering in Afghan internal matters. “We do not really know what will happen after the pull out of International Security Assistance Force, but we are talking with all the stakeholders, especially people from the northern region who were ignored previously,” he said.

Devastating floods and severe droughts have become a major scourge for Pakistan in recent years. While some parts of the country have been swamped by epic floods in recent years, others have suffered through some of the worst droughts, with rivers and dams drying up.

Keeping these climatic fluctuations in mind, an American climatologist has said that he can help revolutionise Pakistan’s weather forecasting system by observing dust clouds and monsoon satellite images, with the data conjured up by these observations readily available on the Internet.

Craig Dremann, who is based in California, has been studying domestic weather patterns for almost two decades. He has been focusing on the Asian climate for the last five years.

According to him, if Pakistan’s meteorological department decided to study his research, flooding and drought patterns could be predicted.

Not only would it save lives and boost the local economy, it could also create an ecological balance to the phenomenon of dust clouds, which he refers to as a manmade weather modifier, he says.

Referring to the Butterfly Effect in Chaos theory, which states that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can cause a cyclone somewhere else on the planet, Dremann said: “When a domesticated animal eats the grass and leaves nothing behind, the soil is exposed and gets airborne, forming a dust cloud. This can cause a drought affecting the summer monsoon moisture needed for crops.”

On the other hand, he explained how this phenomenon can also affect rains, and consequently the risk of flash floods.

“The issue of the dust cloud is that if it moves aside, then Pakistan can suffer from floods, and that is what I predicted 24 hours before the recent floods in the country,” Dremann added, referring to the deluge that wreaked havoc in the country, killing over 24 people in August.

Dremann’s website, www.ecoseeds.com, through which he sells eco-friendly seeds, has a weather portal on it, in which he has also mapped the catastrophic floods of 2010, claiming he saw them coming.

“I believe if Pakistan’s climatologists overlay the daily images of the dust clouds with those during the 2010 floods with their daily rainfall maps, they will see an exact match. Where the dust clouds were absent, the floods occurred,” he explained.

However, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), which monitors the weather patterns in the country, as of yet does not monitor the linkages between dust clouds and the monsoon season. “The theory may be tested out before accepting it, but it is plausible. We will definitely look into it,” said Dr Qamaruz-Zaman Chaudhry, who is currently Pakistan’s Federal Adviser on Climate Change.

Dr Chaudhry, who was the chairman of PMD at the time of the 2010 floods, refuted the fact that there was a dust cloud hovering over Pakistan in the lead up to the disaster.

“We saw the suspended dust cloud phenomenon this year and it has affected the monsoon season. But the monsoon rain pattern is a complex weather system which is affected by many other things too, like summer temperatures for example,” Dr Chaudhry explained.

However, he feels that if Dremann’s research is proven to be true, it could turn out to be very useful. “There is a water shortage in Pakistan and it is quite alarming. If there is some study available which can make help us study weather patterns better, we will certainly like to apply it,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4th, 2012.

]]>7Bulbul Jan, also known as the king of polohttp://tribune.com.pk/story/429838/bulbul-jan-also-known-as-the-king-of-polo/
http://tribune.com.pk/story/429838/bulbul-jan-also-known-as-the-king-of-polo/#commentsSat, 01 Sep 2012 18:43:57 +0000Taha Siddiquihttp://tribune.com.pk/?p=429838Bulbul Jan lives in a house full of trophies, certificates, photographs with celebrities and dignitaries and was recently included in the list that will be awarded the Sitara-e-Imtiaz next year.

Incidentally, he’s also known for his love for polo, the game of kings – Jan has been nicknamed King of Polo – and holds the record of bagging the most man-of-the-match awards at the Shandur Festival. Now in his early 60s, Jan started playing polo in 1979 but lamented the lack of interest in the sport from the general public as well as the government.

“Polo is now a rich man’s game because unlike earlier, a common man can’t afford to raise a horse anymore,” said Jan. “The sport is also dying because it lacks state patronage. Only teams backed by state institutions survive.”

Jan doesn’t play the sport anymore but is involved in coaching local teams and his two sons. Jan took up the sport because a foot injury cut short his football career, and he formed the Jan club with his friends. Then, he had no idea that six years later he will be asked to join the Pakistan Army team and go on to become world famous.

“In the six years that I played locally, we won a lot of matches and I became president of the sports association in Gilgit. But then came my lucky break with the army and I captained the Northern Light Infantry team for two decades. I wanted to be a footballer but I’m glad the injury forced me to choose polo.”

With time – as well as dedication and luck – Jan enjoyed success on and off the field. He played all over Pakistan, even in Dubai once, and was rewarded accordingly. According to Jan, he got a Rs 15,000 monthly stipend when he was with the infantry team as well as various plots from the government, acknowledging all those who helped him along the way.

“I trained soldiers who have now become generals. When they come here, they come to me and pay their respect, ” said Jan before adding that when General Pervez Kayani visited the Gayari sector to oversee relief work, he stopped in Gilgit for dinner where Jan was invited too.

“Besides the army officials, I’ve also taught hundreds of locals and am deeply indebted to God for the respect I’m given.”

And locals say that Jan is perhaps one of the most respected people in Gilgit.

“I’ve been featured in several documentaries in different languages. There is a writer who met me a few years ago, travelling from France to meet me after he had seen my photos in polo clubs around the world.”

As he works hard to keep the sport alive, Jan is not happy with the falling number of visitors, including the foreigners, who not only appreciate the sport but are also keen learners.

“We used to have foreigners who would come tell me they have come to see the kind of polo we play here. But ever since 9/11, there has been a drop in the numbers and that’s an alarming sight.

“The government must look into attracting an international audience and reviving polo. It can help change the image of Pakistan.”

Outside Peshawar’s mosques, after Friday prayers, magazines with articles and pictures of attacks by the Afghan Taliban and violence carried out by Nato forces are distributed, most of the time for free. The magazines are usually accompanied by guidance on Shariah law.

These magazines are available in a number of languages including Urdu, English, Farsi and Dari, reaching out to a wide-ranging audience. One such magazine in Urdu, called Nawaa-e-Afghan Jihad, published last month, has pictures of an attack in June on a hotel in Kabul.

Part of the caption below it reads:

“The Islamic Emirate’s “Fidayeen” attacked a hotel on 22nd June, 2012 in the Green Zone of Kabul killing 25 crusaders and 9 Afghan officials. Along with this, dozens of security personnel were also doomed to hell.”

Although in Pakistan such literature has gone under the radar due to a crackdown by law enforcement agencies, in Afghanistan, this material continues to flourish in provinces along the border including Kunar and Khost, according to locals from these areas.

Near the historic Qissa Khwaani Bazaar in Peshawar is a printing press market aptly called “Mohalla Jangi,” which means the “Neighbourhood of War”. A narrow lane leads inside to around 2,000 printing presses, busy churning out paper printed with whatever has been ordered by the customer.

Ostensibly, the shops here print school books, government publications and promotion material for the development sector, the majority of which is distributed in Afghanistan. But behind closed doors, the industry here also caters to Afghan jihad literature.

Umer, who has run a business here for the last 15 years, says Taliban literature gets printed regularly from his market. “For those who take such orders, it’s just business. Times are bad and some printers need the money,” Umer adds.

Most of his clients are also from Afghanistan, but Umer claims he only takes orders from the development sector. “Those two buildings over there, they have printing presses in them,” says Umer, pointing to a building nearby that looks like a residential complex. “They have tried to hide what they are printing by not having the machines out in the open. But here at the market we all know some of the jihadi magazines originate from here,” he claims.

Just last month, one of the printers from this market was picked up by law enforcers on suspicion of printing Pro-Taliban material. Although he has returned, he refuses to meet with the press and has not come to the market since he was freed.

Another printer, Murad, says around four to five of the businessmen here take orders from the Afghan Taliban. “Peshawar is the first choice for anyone coming from Afghanistan. But now with police harassment of Afghans increasing in Peshawar, most head to Lahore, where the local police cannot distinguish between them and Pashtuns from Pakistan,” Murad adds.

Murad and Umer both know who are behind such literature, and even though they don’t like it, they don’t complain. “The Pashtun community is based on the system of revenge and if I complain against someone, their family may come after me or my family,” Umer confides.

Meanwhile, the union representative of the area, Niaz Ahmad, justifies the printing of such material. “Who are the Taliban? They are the defenders of Islam and they follow the true Islamic Shariah. What’s wrong with what they do?” Ahmad asks.

According to Muhammad Shafiq, a media consultant based in Peshawar who frequently visits Afghanistan, “People here in Pakistan and in Afghanistan already have a lot of anti-American sentiment. Such literature reinforces those beliefs and helps Taliban get recruits and funding.”

“This refugee card I have is powerless,” said Khwaja Meerajuddin, who fled to Pakistan in 1992 from Kabul, as violence erupted in Afghanistan when the civil war broke out in 1991.

Twenty years later, Meerajuddin still lives in uncertainty, because his status as refugee authorized by the Government of Pakistan, in collaboration with United Nation’s Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Afghan Government, expires in just six months.

“Earlier this year, they refused to renew our visas, and now our refugee status will end in December 2012 too,” said Meerajuddin as he showed the card issued to him by the National Database Regulatory Authority in Pakistan (NADRA).

According to the migrant, who lives with his wife, her mother and two sons in a three room upper portion of a house in Islamabad, their family visa was not renewed; and now his bank account, his cellular phone subscription and his rental agreement can be cancelled because the card is not recognised as an authorised document by the private sector, since the interior ministry has not communicated about it.

“Only the police recognise this card, but even they sometimes harass us and ask for money even though we are registered,” added Meerajuddin.

UNHCR spokeswoman in Pakistan, Duniya Aslam, agreed that the card holds no value and said the interior ministry should communicate to everyone so that problems being faced by the refugees can be resolved. “But even if the card expires at the end of this year, it does not mean they will be forced to leave the country,” Aslam said, referring to a trilateral agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United Nations.

According to the UNHCR, Afghan refugees constitute the largest and longest-standing refugee situation in its history. Despite the return of some 5.7 million Afghans to their homeland since 2002, there are still around 2 million registered Afghans in Pakistan, while sources in the Afghan embassy say there are around 1 million unregistered Afghans.

When contacted, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Pakistan Umer Daudzai agreed that refugees are facing uncertainty, but was hopeful they will be allowed an extension. “No one can force them out and even the last time in 2009, the cards were renewed for three years and we expect the same this time too,” said Daudzai.

He also urged the Pakistani government to ensure that the refugees are treated well. “We reacted strongly to the statement by the government of Pakistan, recently, calling Afghans in the country, adding to the problem of terrorism. They should be careful and not say such things,” the ambassador added, saying such issues lead to harassment by security forces.

Pakistan’s government officials believe that the country has hosted Afghan refugees for too long without any rewards. Senator Haji Adeel, who belongs to Awami National Party, and is part of the federal government, said the trilateral agreement needs to be revisited. “If we continue to host these refugees, we need monetary support from the international community,” said Adeel.

The senator further added that the unregistered refugees should immediately repatriate, and June 30th this year is the deadline for them to go back, while the registered should go home too.

But Daudzai, the Afghan ambassador, and refugees feel that settling back home can be difficult. “We cannot accommodate the refugees if they all come back at the same time,” said Daudzai.

And in recent years, return rates have slowed according to UNHCR. In 2011 only 70,000 Afghan refugees returned home. And Meerajuddin voices his fears of returning to his homeland. “When the NATO troops pull out, there will be a power struggle in Afghanistan again and if we go back now, I am scared for the security of my children,” he said. “I have spent most of my life in Pakistan, and going back I know there is nothing for me in Afghanistan,” Meerajuddin added.

*Ahmad Yama SHirzad is not a staff reporter

This report was written during the Af-Pak Fellowship 2012 in collaboration with the Friedrcih-Ebert-Stiftung.

Crammed in like cattle, Bao crossed several borders to reach his final destination.

“We were stuffed in containers like sheep in barns,” said Bao, a name he acquired once he reached the alpha city of Barcelona.

“I didn’t know if I would make it alive. My agent would say InshAllah every time I asked him when my journey would end,” said Bao , who refused to share his birth name.

Half a million rupees and six weeks later, Bao finally reached the shores of the historical port city, where the 15th century explorer Christopher Columbus had once returned from a journey of triumph, with illustrations of his discovery of a new world.

But Bao’s expedition is a modern-day tale, not one commissioned by the Crown of Spain, but one with similar ambitions. Hailing from Sialkot, Bao travelled through Iran, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and France before he crossed into Spain. He has been living in Barcelona for four years now, making ends meet as a beer vendor on the streets of the city that never sleeps.

In Barcelona, Bao’s business flourishes after midnight when people begin congregating around public squares around the city, known as Plaça’s in Spanish. The squares, which get rather busy in after hours, are packed with residents and tourists drinking, dancing and enjoying live music, till the party is broken up by the police around 3am.

This is where Bao makes a living. Similar to Pakistan’s very own street traders aka beggars, Bao is a hustler. He sells beer for a euro at these squares in times when even the average European has learnt how to spell austerity.

Fluent enough to sell his alcoholic beverage, Bao has no shame in asking twice, or thrice. Persistence, in this case, pays off as beer at the local bars is usually sold for 2.5 euros. Bao and other South Asian immigrants, who discovered this ingenious way to make ends meet, have divided such public squares across Barcelona amongst themselves.

Just a block away from Bao’s Plaça, Indians handle a bustling crowd at another square.

“We coordinate with each other and do not sell at each other’s square. We even warn them when the police are on the hunt, and they do the same,” said an Indian beer vendor, requesting anonymity.

Using cell phones to coordinate and disperse when the police rush these spots, these beer men have slowly become accustomed to the ways of the Spanish police.

“We taught them corruption,” claimed another Pakistani beer seller, while Bao added that in the few cases where they are caught by the police, their money and beer is seized but they walk free.

Despite the hardships, these black-marketers claim to make enough money to live in Barcelona and even send some back home.

“I make around 100-200 euros a day. And send around fifty thousand rupees home every month,” Bao said as he hid a six-pack of beers beneath a loose tile.

Be that as it may, Bao isn’t an alcoholic. In fact he claims to have never had a drop of the lager he sells to make a living.

“I know alcohol is not allowed in Islam but I have no choice. I cannot find any work here, even though I have a residence permit now but the economic situation is poor,” said Bao, who married a local to get residency at the price of 5000 euros.

According to the Pakistani embassy in Spain, some 470,001 legal Pakistani residents live in Spain, with 33,000 living in the provincial region called Catalonia, where Barcelona is located.

“My neighborhood has many Pakistanis living. Some sell beers like Bao, others drive taxis and some own grocery stores,” said Jordi Torrel, who works at a local newspaper.

Torrel said the Pakistanis worked really hard to survive in the city.

“They even open their shops on Sundays,” he said, adding that such grocery stores have come to be known as ‘Al Paki’ as Pakistanis began the trend.

Bao, who has successfully assimilated in Barcelona, has still not forgotten his home. He plans to visit Pakistan in search of another wife, one from his own village. And even though there’s no saying as to whether his new wife will approve of his daily exploits at the Plaça, needless to say he will be there for many nights to come.

Yaseen works at a power loom cottage factory in the town of Kasur. But these days he is usually free, unable to make money as he did just a few months back. The reason behind his woes is unscheduled load-shedding.

“I work for daily wages and get money according to what I produce per day,” says Yaseen, who supports his two children, and lives in a four-room house nearby with his three brothers, two of which are employed in similar unskilled work, and one recently lost his job as a power loom in the area shut down. “We have no electricity for at least 12 to 14 hours on some days. Sometimes it’s gone for a whole five hours, so I get to work only for less than half the time,” the textile worker adds.

As he speaks, the electricity goes off, and all work comes to a halt as the machines go silent. “This is what we face every day. I am earning less than Rs8,000 a month, and I have a household to support,” Yaseen complains, foreseeing a very bleak future. “We are really frustrated and angry. If I am forced out of my job, I will join the protesters and become part of the riots, because the government has left me with no choice,” he adds.

The owner of this factory says he is fast losing his clientele too. “The cloth that we produce goes abroad, and we are always missing our delivery date,” says Shareef. “Things have never been this bad, and I do not think I will be able to run my business any longer,” he adds.

Shareef’s fears are not far-fetched: according to a local union based out of Kasur, there were around 7,000 to 8,000 factories in their city of which less than 4,000 are left. Like Yaseen, Shareef also wants to take to the streets and shake the corridors of power.

“Around 10,000 to 15,000 people have been made jobless in our area. We have protested and will continue to do so till the government provides us relief,” says Rasheed Ansari, who was involved in violent protests just few weeks ago and was arrested by the police for trying to destroy government property.

“We have no choice but to express ourselves in this way. The government does not listen to us otherwise,” claims the unionist. “They could not deliver in four and a half years, and now our textile industry is being destroyed day by day,” he added.

Such protests in Punjab are now being backed by the PML-N. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has set up a camp near Minar-e-Pakistan to express solidarity with the suffering people. Wearing a black armband, he voices his concerns for the loom industry too, “I am here to protest against the federal government. Pakistan has lost almost a billion dollars of exports because of load-shedding in Punjab,” he laments.

However, Col (R) Shujah Khanzada, a PML-N representative of the Punjab Assembly, also present at the camp says that people are running out of patience. “I have tried to stop them from coming out from my constituency in Attock, but because women and children cannot sleep and men cannot rest, we think these protests are justified and are with the people,” says Khanzada.

But is there a downside to the covert supporting of these protests? Dr Hassan Askari, a renowned security and political analyst, says that sponsoring such riots may get out of hands. “It’s like when the intelligence agencies and the military supported non-state actors during the Afghan jihad.”

In an effort to bridge the gap between Afghanistan and Pakistan, 11 Afghan journalists arrived in Baragali on Monday in the second phase of a journalist exchange programme titled ‘Understanding the Neighbour.’

The nine-day fellowship will entail discussions, presentations, research and report writing with their 11 Pakistani counterparts.

Chairman of the Afghan Journalists Committee and one of the participants, Malik Faisal Moonzajer, said his perception about Pakistan has changed a lot during the first three days of the fellowship programme in Kabul.

Pakistani participants were simultaneously trained in Baragali about Afghanistan and Pakistan’s political, social and cultural aspects.

A young journalist from Sare Pol in northern Afghanistan, Moonzajer said people back home mostly consider Pakistan as the “enemy”.

“I have learned that there have been some misunderstandings between the people of the two countries. I now know Pakistan is not the enemy country,” he added.

Moonzajer said they met the Pakistani Ambassador in Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, during the workshop. Quoting the ambassador, he said the Pakistani government had offered several scholarships to students in Afghan universities, but they never found out about it. If the connections between our governments do not work, he suggested, such offers should be made through other channels “that work”.

Parveen Malal, cultural attaché of the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar, said things have changed in her country. “The fact that a woman is at the position I am says a lot about how the Afghan society is progressing,” she added.

Farkhanda Rajabe, the only female participant from Afghanistan, said preconceived notions in her minds have been removed after her personal interaction with her Pakistani counterparts.